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The Big Bet

At age 18, Taylor Lautner is pulling down $7.5 million a film and being lusted after by the female population of America. Here, the world's highest-paid teen wolf tries on fall's best trends, the kind of no-nonsense clothes that are built for the man that Hollywood hopes he'll become

The hysterical children. That's what stands out most. The red carpet is lined with these screaming tykes, hundreds of small wonders packed ten feet deep on raised platforms. They are reaching out their hands for Him, shoving little notebooks and pink pens into His hand. The desperation in their cries has a familiar, specific timbre; they sound like hungry newborn infants.

It is March 27, and I am inching down the red carpet at Nickelodeon's annual Kids' Choice Awards—embedded with Taylor Lautner, Twilight's boy werewolf, now reportedly the highest-paid teenage actor in Hollywood. He's one of the highest-paid actors period, having just signed a $7.5 million deal to play Stretch Armstrong in a big-screen take on a toy no one has seen in thirty years. Lautner's regular security guard, a professional badass, notices me flinching at the shrieking. He smiles: "On the New Moon tour, I took Advil. Preventively."

Lautner—dressed in a wool blazer over a white V-neck T-shirt (both gifts from the designer Neil Barrett), his dark hair shellacked into a skyward-pointing spear—seems unfazed. Is it always like this? I ask. So he tells me about Brazil. How he and his Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart were trapped in a hotel suite when hundreds of teenage fans stormed the lobby, outwitted security, and charged the stairs to get to them. "We were in lockdown in this little room for forty-five minutes waiting for the SWAT team to arrive," Lautner says, his eyes wide. "We said to each other, 'Let's say they get into this room. What are they going to do? Tear us to shreds? What do they want?' "

Finally we are at the door to UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, finally inside the building, finally moving toward our seats in the front row, when I notice: For a kids' show, this is one fucking starry room. Adam Sandler, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Robert Downey Jr., Rihanna—they're all within earshot. Avatar's Zoe Saldana is sitting three seats away. Rosario Dawson and Olympic champion Shaun White will present the first award. It's a tribute to the primacy of the youth market. They've all come to kiss the (candy) ring.

Lautner, 18, sits down and begins to tell me how honored he is to be here, how honored he's been to be everywhere lately. Like at this year's Oscars, where he introduced a tribute to horror films alongside Stewart. "I would have passed out if she wasn't there!" Lautner says. "You're looking down and you're talking to George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio—and they're listening to you!" This is his baseline sentiment: honest, enthusiastic bafflement. It's probably the only suitable reaction. He talks about the MTV Video Music Awards, where he presented a trophy to his then maybe-girlfriend Taylor Swift, only to watch Kanye snatch the microphone. "I was standing behind her as it was happening, and 100 percent I was sure it was staged!" Lautner says, eyebrows raised. "I thought, 'This was something that they rehearsed.' I was enjoying the show! But then Taylor turned around and I saw her face."

Just then, at the UCLA auditorium, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks Animation, suddenly interrupts the conversation with a question. Katzenberg—59 years old, V-neck sweater, pleated khakis—leans in close. "Taylor," he says, "do you have two minutes? Will Smith wants to meet you."

A minute later, Lautner returns to his seat, winded. He looks around the arena, at the 7,000 fans and the lights and the cameras, and asks out loud, "Is this really happening? Am I really here?"

Those are pretty good questions. He might also ask: What on earth did I do to deserve that $7.5 million contract and the adoration of millions? He's handsome, yes. But in two Twilight films, Lautner has logged fifty minutes of screen time. Total. In the first movie, he spoke 239 words. Oh, and he was nearly fired from the sequel before filming began. (More on that soon.)

Finally the lights inside the UCLA arena dim, signaling the start of the show, and when Lautner's photograph appears on the JumboTron, the shrieking resumes. Lautner's security guard rushes over with one last message, whispering something into his ear before disappearing again into the darkness.

One week after the Kids' Choice Awards, Taylor Lautner pulls up for lunch in Valencia, California, a suburb forty-five minutes north of Hollywood. This is where he lives, with his parents and younger sister, in a home that's almost indistinguishable from the others in the neighborhood. Lautner suggests the Olive Garden for lunch. "Do you like this place?" he asks, a little unsure, adding: "My father turned me on to it." Without glancing at the menu, Lautner orders the Toscana soup, then asks to substitute the Caesar salad for the house. Before the waiter can reply, Lautner interrupts innocently: "I know," he says, "it'll be a dollar fifty extra. That's fine." Well, yes. Yes, it will be.

If the Olive Garden seems an unlikely place to meet one of the most watched teenagers in America, so be it. The location is as clear an indication as any of how far he's come, and how fast. His is a story filled with extreme coincidence, as if the heavens opened up and said, You. You with the teeth. Next year at this time, people will be able to draw your abs from memory.

Because he's only 18, his creation story takes about thirty seconds, but it begins at a karate school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is 7 years old when (Random Fate-Sealing Circumstance #1) the school's owner invites his students to a martial-arts tournament in Louisville, Kentucky. There, Lautner meets Mike Chat, a karate coach who's been (Random Fate-Sealing Circumstance #2) a successful actor. Okay, he was the Blue Power Ranger, but still. Chat encourages Lautner to come out to L.A. for a martial-arts summer camp and later a monthlong stay. He hooks the boy up with an agent, and while Lautner returns home to Michigan without a job, he's still getting calls about auditions.

The story might end there, except that (Random Fate-Sealing Circumstance #3) Lautner's father happens to be a pilot for Midwest Airlines, and the family can fly standby for almost nothing. "I'd go to sleep at nine in Michigan, and my parents would get a phone call, Can you be in L.A. tomorrow for an audition?" Lautner says. "They'd wake me up at four in the morning, and we'd fly to L.A. I'd get home the next morning and just miss the bus for school." When the Herman Miller production plant Lautner's mother works at shuts down (Random Fate-Sealing Circumstance #4), the family takes it as a sign to move west, renting a two-bedroom apartment a few blocks from the Olive Garden, on one of those fakey Main Streets popular in preplanned communities like this one. His most high-profile booking: playing a 3-D fish in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

Our food comes quickly, followed immediately by the Olive Garden's service manager, José, who'd like to "make sure everything is tasting just fine so far." Beat. "I just wanted to say it's a pleasure having you. Go, Team Jacob!"

Ah yes. Jacob. Lautner's biggest and most intense bit of luck was Twilight. And as if to underscore the idea that luck is massively fleeting, he almost lost the part. In 2008, Lautner was cast as Jacob Black, Native American teenager and platonic best friend to Bella Swan. (Lautner had just four scenes in the film and missed a week of school.) Released on November 21, 2008, the movie made instant tabloid stars of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Lautner was worse than an afterthought: The studio hinted at replacing him. (A press release was issued trumpeting the return of Kristen and Robert; Lautner was MIA.) Jacob discovers he's a werewolf in book two and grows from a skinny wannabe into a six-foot-seven man-wolf. Offscreen, Lautner still looked like a pup. He had a Twilight lunchbox with his face on it but would have to audition for the sequel.

Lautner admits to some dark, if brief, moments of self-doubt. He hired a personal trainer on his own dime and started practicing some Tony Robbins mind tricks. "I'm in the gym," Lautner says, "and I'm doing reps, and I'm reading the books, and I'm studying the character. I'm just saying to myself, 'I want this role. I love this role. I'm not gonna lose it. And I'm gonna know it better than anybody, and I'm gonna do that extra rep, because I'm gonna be Jacob Black.' " He ate every two hours, mostly meat his parents cooked and then packed in a cooler he kept in the car. Sitting in traffic, Lautner would eat cold ground chuck from plastic Baggies. He put on thirty pounds of muscle, consented to a screen test with Stewart (who lobbied on his behalf), and kept his job. He also solved the film's marketing issues when his abdominal muscles became New Moon's main talking point, not to mention his calling card. In one scene, Stewart crashes a motorcycle, and Lautner rushes to her aid. "It's just blood, Bella," he says. "No big deal." And then pauses to peel off his shirt.

As if on cue, a twentysomething man slides up to our table. "I'm sorry," he says, "can I take a photo? Uh, my niece is a big fan."

Over lunch, Lautner signs a dozen autographs and poses for everyone with a cell phone. His cultural momentum is obvious—and as enthusiastically as he hit the weight room and the bags of meat, he has worked to keep it that way. Lautner was out promoting New Moon for months after its release, to the point that Stewart—his de facto older sister offscreen—sent him a text message: "Stop working and come home already. I miss you." New Moon has made $297 million, and since its release, Lautner's name has been attached to no less than five major projects. He was reportedly offered seven figures to star in Max Steel, another would-be blockbuster based on a toy, but chose Stretch Armstrong, because, he says, it was "ready." ("Ready" is a relative term in Hollywood. There was no script, nor was there a director. But Hasbro, coming off Transformers, had a reputation for getting films made.) When Lautner begged off Max Steel, producer Joe Roth (Alice in Wonderland) complained to the Daily Beast that Lautner was "getting bad advice."

"I heard about that," Lautner says diplomatically, "It's funny you'd mention that. Because I ran into Joe Roth last night at the Lakers game." Awkward? "No. I walked up to him and said hello. He's very nice!" How were your seats? "Great. Courtside!"

There are many such perils facing Nickelodeon's favorite male actor. For starters, he has to be careful about his rep as beefcake. He tells a story reminiscent of the plight of young female starlets in town: Lautner had a small role in the surprise hit Valentine's Day, playing a high school athlete. The role was written speciffically for him. "Originally I was supposed to take off my shirt," he says. "The script said we were walking into school and Willy takes off his shirt. I said, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out. He's gonna take off his shirt in the middle of school? No, no, no. The reason I took off my shirt for New Moon is because it's written in the book that way. And there's reasons behind it."

A note to future pop-culture historians: This may have been the precise moment it became okay to sell a young male's physique the same way Hollywood sells Megan Fox.

It's a funny thing, that $7.5 million deal. Taylor Lautner is being offered action-star tentpole money. But he hasn't actually been in an action film yet. If Hollywood is hoping Eclipse, out this month, will answer any lingering doubts about whether he can carry one, guess again. The big fight scenes? Lautner's not in them. His twelve-foot CGI avatar is. "When Jacob fights," explains Eclipse director David Slade, "he's furry." What Slade can tell us about Lautner's potential is how much he's improved as an actor. He recalls filming one moment where Lautner transitions back to human form at the end of a battle. Slade says, "I saw Taylor standing behind a tree beating his chest" to prepare himself. "He was playing pain."

Whether Lautner is worth that kind of payday or not is an impossible question to answer, and perhaps even an unfair one. Hollywood's in a panic, throwing money at anyone who looks like he can hold a gun convincingly. "I can't get caught up in that," Lautner says. "If I start thinking, Is this movie going to open? Is this movie going to do well? I'm not focusing on the job. The job is to make a good movie."

Still, the pressure is on. Later this month, Lautner heads to Pittsburgh to shoot his first solo vehicle, Abduction. It's sort of a teen Bourne Identity, the story of a high school senior whose parents are killed the same day he finds his own photograph on a Web site for missing persons. This will be Lautner's first chance to carry a movie and to answer that other lingering question: Is he a movie star or a fleeting—albeit suddenly rich—curiosity? He says he wants to follow the "Tom Cruise model," and that's probably the right way to go. Lautner has the chance to be one of those nonthreatening boyish action heroes, the type that can cross ethnic lines and gender divides and bring people to the box office in droves. Random Fate-Sealing Circumstance may have brought him here, but it's undeniable that he's made the most of the moment. It reminds me of something Chris Weitz, the director of New Moon, told me about Lautner's appeal. Weitz fought to keep Lautner on the project because, he says, "it was easier for Taylor to bulk up than for us to find some hunky, brooding guy and make him seem like the best friend of an 18-year-old girl." A strange skill, sure, but also a hell of an asset if you're trying to sell tickets.

Or toys, for that matter. Finishing up lunch, Lautner launches back into Is this really happening? story hour. Like when Hasbro flew him out to the corporate headquarters to present him with a Stretch Armstrong action figure cast in his likeness. The doll so closely resembled Lautner, the actor says giddily, that "I literally thought it was me in a little miniature size." Or when he went on Oprah: "I got the famous Oprah hug!" Or when he met Robert Downey Jr. at the Vanity Fair Oscar party. "He's awesome!" Lautner says. "He was wearing these blue glasses, and he introduced me to his wife, Susan. He's as nice as could be."

After lunch we climb into Lautner's 5 Series BMW—"My first car!" he says—for a tour of his new hometown. The windows are tinted so dark they appear to be presidential-grade.

"The paparazzi," he says, shrugging his shoulders.

Does it get to you?

"There's some things you just have to live with," Lautner says, pulling out of the parking lot. "Like twelve cars camping outside your house, and when you wake up in the morning, they're going to follow you wherever you go. It helps that I live in Valencia. It eliminates some. But they're still here."

We keep driving, past the movie theater, past the gym where he works out. We drive past the Promenade, where the Lautners first lived in Valencia, where his sister turned the walk-in closet into her own bedroom. Ask if he's considered getting his own place, now that his career is on solid ground, and he looks like the thought never occurred to him. "Um, you know, not so much," he says. Really? What 18-year-old movie star with millions wouldn't move out of his parents' house? "There's really no point. I'm so busy. I really haven't thought about it."

I think he likes it in this small town, with its strip malls and Olive Gardens. Because there's too much at stake, and he can't get into any trouble here. "There's some of that," he says. "The thing I love is that my home life hasn't changed. I still help out with the garbage. I still help out with the lawn."

Lautner has to get home, he says. In the morning, he and his team will leave for Madrid for a promotional gig. Lautner has been to Europe a handful of times, but always for work. "It's a tease, is what it is," he says. "You show up in Paris, and on the drive from the airport to the hotel you're like, 'This is so cool! I want to see something! I want to go to the Eiffel Tower!' And then you leave the next morning. You think, Oh, I didn't get to do anything." He pauses. "I tell people: I've been just about everywhere, but I've seen nothing."